Mas'ood Cajee is a Muslim man in a mostly Christian city, county, state, country.

On the eve of the first program to show another side of his roots and his Islamic faith, Monday's showing of the film "Koran by Heart," Cajee didn't first consider the possibility of educating the uninformed.

Instead, as he contemplated the start of Muslim Journeys, the donation of three films and 25 book titles to the library made possible because of the proposal he'd written for a National Endowments of Humanities grant, Cajee's thoughts were on the library.

The Stockton resident, who has a dental practice in Manteca, loves the library the way some people love the 49ers or the Giants.

Its history, its current success and its potential are issues that propel Cajee to inquire about grants, serve on the Library and Literacy Foundation board and head that organization's programming committee.

While the residents of Stockton are divided over which proposal will best curb crime, Cajee is imploring City Council members to consider spending money on libraries and community centers as a weapon.

From the time he was young, the 39-year-old Cajee found comfort in the library.

As a child in Johannesburg, South Africa, he'd spend Saturday morning at the central library, dropped off by his parents to explore the children's section.

"Saturday was one of the days in which it was open to the general public," Cajee said. "Many days it was closed to nonwhites, but on Saturday you could go. Looking back, the library represented a passport out. It wasn't just a fantasy, with a book you checked out, but the education was uplifting. Nelson Mandela has a quote about education being the greatest weapon of social change."

Mandela was still imprisoned when Cajee's family left South Africa for the United States, where the 10-year-old would again find his niche in the library.

"As a kid I got to go to the old Seattle Public Library," Cajee said, "the one built in the 1950s. It was great. They had film reels and you could go in a private viewing booth. My mom would drop me off there and I was only too happy. We didn't have a VCR at home. I watched films. I remember seeing 'Ben Hur.' And I read books or checked out microfiche and looked up in the Seattle Times what happened on the day I was born."

What remained the same for Cajee, whether in South Africa or Seattle, was the importance placed on reading, on obtaining an education. His parents, aunts and uncles all encouraged him to read, to learn.

"Family discussions were about politics, religion or sports. No matter what, you had to hold your own," Cajee said.

The passion for a good library remains. When he took his family - his wife, Mahveen Hussain, and two of his three kids, Zayd, 7, and Murad, 5 - on a family vacation to Washington, D.C., and New York recently, Cajee was awed by the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, "two of our greatest institutions."

"Visiting the Library of Congress makes you understand why America is such a great country," Cajee said. "To me the Library of Congress is bigger than the U.S. Capitol. Seeing the (Thomas) Jefferson Library? This is the man whose dream is our reality."

The rich history and promise aren't limited to those massive bastions of books and letters found on the East Coast. Cajee experiences the same sense of awe in the local library.

"In the 19th century, Boston was the archetypal American city," Cajee said, referencing the work of media critic Neil Postman. "It's what American cities aspired to be. It had the first public library, the first public school, the great universities, a literary culture with Thoreau and Emerson. It was the city on a hill. The archetypal American city in the 20th century was no longer Boston or New York (according to Postman). It was Las Vegas. That's what every city aspires to be. They're falling over themselves to build arenas, stadiums, entertainment and show biz venues. They're walking over each other to amuse themselves to death.

"Our civic priority was to build an arena, a marina, a ballpark. We needed them, but they were not the priorities. It's great to have them, but what fires my imagination about Stockton is that in the late 19th and early 20th century, Stockton was a Boston. It had the best library in the West. It's mind blowing to think in 1924, the board of trustees of University of the Pacific would move to Stockton from San Jose. They thought the future was not in San Jose, but in Stockton. In 1924 The Haggin was built. We had the Philomathean Club. Our civic institutions in the late 19th and early 20th century were second to none in the U.S."

Civic leadership, or lack of it, changed Stockton's standing over the years, and Cajee considers his beloved city at a crossroads.

"We have to decide what kind of city we want to be in the 21st century," Cajee said. "Do we aspire to be a great city in the tradition of Jefferson, of Boston, or do we want to be Detroit? Or Las Vegas, the hub of mindless entertainment and consumerism?"

He's opting for door No. 1, doing his part by landing the grant for Muslim Journeys. He also earned a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that focuses on civil rights and sees other opportunities to better put the library in the public conscience.

He dreams of a brand-new, state-of-the-art library in Stockton, but he's a realist. Funds are low, debts are high, and the immediate needs of the community trump the long-term benefits of a well-read and educated community.

Rather than throw up his hands in frustration, Cajee looks for opportunities.

"Stockton is a great city with great potential," Cajee said. "It just needs a little help."